The Jersey City teen charged with murdering a 24-year-old Bayonne man during a robbery made his first court appearance on the charge today as the victim's heartbroken family looking on tearfully from the courtroom benches.

Larry "Du Du" Austin, 18, of Johnston Avenue, was silent during the hearing in Central Judicial Processing Court in Jersey City but he grimaced and shook his head when the judge told him his bail was $750,000, cash only.

Austin is accused of killing Jorge L. Cuadra, 24, of Avenue C during the robbery.

Cuadra was shot at 1:45 a.m. Saturday at Communipaw Avenue and Whiton Street and he remained on life support until his death after his organs were harvested Tuesday, officials said.

Cuadra was born in Jersey City, graduated from Dickinson High School in 2005, studied English literature the past two years at New Jersey City University and was to leave for basic training in the U..S Navy on Sept. 22, his mother, Gloria Torres, told The Jersey Journal today.

Cuadra, who worked at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, was a self-taught guitar and keyboard player who wrote songs and poetry, his mother said. He had a love for books and for nature.

On the night Cuadra was shot, he was leaving a party thrown by fellow NJCU students and was walking through the Lafayette section to catch a light rail train home.

Torres said she worried about her son walking, but he liked to because he wanted to be in shape for basic training in Illinois.

"He didn't see any evil in people," said Torres who attended the CJP hearing with Cuadra's stepfather, Carlos Melendez, and other family members. "You don't see a shrine over where he was shot, or candles and bottles of beer, because he was not of the streets. He was not perfect -- no child is -- but he was damn close."

When Cuadra and his two friends left the Pine Street party two men, one armed with a handgun, ordered them into an alley and demanded money, reports said.

The robbers took $16 and a cell phone from a 19-year-old Jersey City man before he smashed his head with the butt of the pistol, opening up a gash that required stitches to close, reports said.

The gunman turned to the second Jersey City victim, a 22-year-old man, and hit him in the face with the gun, knocking him out and injuring his jaw, reports said.

The gunman then demanded Cuadra's wallet, but before he handed it over the gunman put him in a headlock and shot him, reports said.

All three victims were taken to the Jersey City Medical Center.

Austin was arrested that day and charged with aggravated assault, robbery and weapons offenses, officials said.

Victoria Cheng/The Jersey JournalLarry Austin, 18, of Jersey City makes his first appearance today on charges he murdered 24-year-old Jorge Cuadra of Bayonne during a robbery in Jersey City early Saturday.

The arrest came less than a month after Austin was was indicted in connection with a May 17 incident in Jersey City on charges of drug possession with intent to distribute both within 500 feet of public property and within 1,000 feet of a school, officials said.

Torres said the bullet that entered her son's neck and exited at his right eyebrow damaged his spinal cord and blocked the flow of blood to his swollen brain. She said more than 200 people visited him each day at the Jersey City Medical Center.

In her grief, Torres manages to find solace in the fact that her son's organs helped save the lives of five people.

She hopes to meet them one day.

"I want to let the person with his heart know what a great heart he had," she said.

Cuadra, she said, wanted to buy a house for his mother with the money he would earn in the Navy.

"He thought it was time to repay me," Torres said. "I said, 'I want you to go places and do things and be happy.' Twenty-four years old. ... This is where it ends."